Here I am

Here I am - this is me
There's no where else on earth I'd rather be
Here I am - it's just me and you
And tonight we make our dreams come true

It's a new world - it's a new start
It's alive with the beating of young hearts
It's a new day - it's a new plan
I've been waiting for you
Here I am

Here we are - we've just begun
And after all this time - our time has come
Ya here we are - still goin' strong
Right here in the place where we belong

Oh It's a new world - it's a new start
It's alive with the beating of young hearts
It's a new day - it's a new plan
I've been waiting for you
Here I am

Here I am

Yeah

I've been waiting for you

Here I am - this is me
There's no where else on earth I'd rather be
Here I am - it's just me and you
And tonight we make our dreams come true

Oh It's a new world - it's a new start
It's alive with the beating of young hearts
It's a new day - it's a new plan
I've been waiting for you
Oh It's a new world - it's a new start
It's alive with the beating of young hearts
It's a new day - it's a new plan
I've been waiting for you

(Waiting, waiting, waiting)
Oh Here I am 

(Oh, Here I am) 

Here I am - next to you
And suddenly the world is all brand new
Here I am

Here I am - where I'm gonna stay
Now there's nothin standin in our way
Oh Here I am - this is me 

Exactly today one year ago I got my information where I'm going to stay for my exchange year. It was a Saturday and I slept in... I always do - very, very, very long :D When I came downstairs my brother and dad were watching Formula 1. I sat next to them on the couch and after about 10 minutes I think Marcel said there was a letter from YFU. It was just a regular letter so I thought it would be more information about Orientation or some other meeting, but in stead I got my host family!

I was soooo incredibly excited that I started screaming and I ran back in the living room to tell Marcel and Dad. Then I kind of got mad that they didn't woke me up earlier, but then again I thought it was my own fault because I can get very grumpy when I can't sleep in on Saturdays :D

Anyway I remember that my mom worked the night before and was still sleeping but because I was so loud she woke up and I told her too. And then I started googling everything I could possibly google about: Saint Cloud, Minnesota, Apollo, etc.! I was so excited ;)

After I did that for about 3 hours I realized that I should probably send an email to my host family. So I did... it took me about 1 more hour because I wanted it to be perfect, because it's the first personal thing that the Theis would get from me... the email is 12 lines long. It is so funny to read it now because I remember how I sat there with my parents in the living room with my laptop at midnight writing it :)

Three days later, March 9th, I checked my emails before school at 6 o'clock in the morning ... I think I checked them literally every 30 minutes during that time. I ran into my parents bedroom to tell my Dad that Steph send me an email back with a link to her blog. It was really nice to be able to look at all the pictures when I came home from school - it was so hard to concentrate in school for 8 hours because I really wanted to read the blog :D

I really can't believe that all this is already a year ago.
"Here I am" now and "There's no where else on earth I'd rather be"

A couple YFU exchange students from the area met yesterday for a potluck at a volunteers house and we talked about "Paying it forward" - telling people about the exchange program to find new host families or exchange students for the upcoming years so that the next exchange students know their new family as early as possible. There are students every year who don't know where they are going to spend the next year until just a couple days before they fly to their exchange country.
So if you're interested in hosting a student this next year please talk to me :) I would love to tell you more about being an exchange student or you could also have a look at Steph's blog to get some impressions what it's like to be a host family. I really like this post.

Thank you so much to everybody who made this exchange year possible!
Especially Steph and Mitch who let me be "No. 11" in their family :)

Here I am

P.S.: Dad you remember where this song is from? Little hint: It's a movie :P